Nowadays, semiconductor devices such as integrated circuits (ICs) routinely comprise patterned metallization layers for interconnecting circuit elements, e.g. transistor terminals in the substrate or to provide external access, e.g. bond pads, to the circuit elements that are embedded in the semiconductor device. Typically, the metallization layers are formed by stacking and patterning dielectric layers and metal layers to obtain the required interconnections. The dielectric and metal layers themselves may contain sub-layers. The dielectric layers typically comprise vias to conductively connect metal portions in the different metal layers with each other.
Typically, significant efforts are made to ensure that defective semiconductor devices are removed from a batch of manufactured semiconductor devices to avoid field returns of such devices as much as possible. Field returns inconvenience the customer, and can lead to a loss of business because of the customer losing faith in the product. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to capture all defective semiconductor devices such that it cannot be avoided that some defective devices enter the market. On the other hand, a returned faulty device may have entered the market functioning correctly, where it is possible that the fault has developed through misuse of the semiconductor device, e.g. by the customer exposing the device to excessive mechanical impacts. Obviously, in such a case, the manufacturer cannot be held responsible for the failure of the device.
It is difficult to establish why a semiconductor device returned from the field has failed. Re-engineering the device to determine the cause of failure is not always successful and is cost-prohibitive for single devices. It is possible to embed a micro-electromechanical sensor (MEMS) device in the metallization stack of the semiconductor device to monitor the acceleration forces to which the device has been subjected with such forces exceeding certain threshold values being indicative of the device having been subjected to sudden impacts. This approach has the drawback that active monitoring of the MEMS sensor is required during the lifetime of the semiconductor device, which adds to the energy consumption of the device as well as to its cost because some memory element and logic circuitry must be provided for continuous sensor read out and to store the maximum acceleration force to which the MEMS device has been exposed.